


Lord and Master

by DarkShadeless



Series: Overseer Sar [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 13:59:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16517804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: There are a few lessons Darth Soverus is trying to impart upon his young apprentice that haven’t quite stuck yet.





	Lord and Master

**Author's Note:**

> For those who read the rest of the series first: This is a step into the past, to the very beginnings of Yon's journey. I'll shuffle it to the right point in the series as soon as I figure out how. (There was a button, I know there was. Update: Found it!)

 

 

_The difference between a master and a beginner_

_is that the master has failed more times than the beginner_

_has even tried._

 

 

Yon comes to Korriban almost a week late. If one was inclined to put stock in such things, not the most auspicious note to start on. It’s no one’s fault in particular, an ion storm caught the shuttle and scrambled the navigational computer. Calculating routes by hand is something every navigator has to learn for emergencies but it doesn’t happen in a day.

Bad luck. _Is there such a thing as luck, though?_

 

\---

 

_Not quite four years later_

 

The battlefield displayed on the holotable is a disaster. No surprise there. Lord Mafit had known this posting was a lost cause going in. That had been half of the point. The other half…

_Darth Soverus is going to kill me._

He shouldn’t have gotten caught up in the moment. His temper got the better of him, the pressure of command and, as he would never admit to anyone but himself, the fact that none of what his master’s apprentice was saying was something he hadn’t said to himself time and again.

 

_That’s it? You’re just going to give up? Are you a Sith or a coward?_

There is no way to win this. Strategic retreat is _not_ cowardice, even if it leaves half a quadrant without protection. Sacrifices must be made.

Where does reasoning end and justification begin?

 

_You insolent whelp, you think you can do better? Be my guest!_

Yon might have started their disagreement but Mafit had thrown the challenge down. _He_ caused this and he didn’t have the excuse of being all of nineteen, sparking with juvenile righteousness and filled to the brim with more loyalty than should fit into a boy that short. Small wonder their master loves his student so well. They are so alike.

All it would take is some time, some tempering, and that feral child would become a warrior that will have whole star systems trembling in his wake.

Isn’t that why he is here riding herd on Sar in the first place?

Mafit ignores his officer’s uneasy shifting as he continues to study the map. He has sent his master’s apprentice to his death with open eyes and he has no one to blame but himself.

No unit at his disposal could break through to the mobile shield generators they have to shut down to have a shot at turning away the assault hammering their frontline. That’s the entire problem.

A fortune in war machinery is steamrolling over their defences. If those pirates aren’t funded by the Republic, Mafit will eat his cape. As it stands he has no proof beyond their firepower and he won’t. This day would be bitter enough without him failing his master as completely as he has.

Yon went alone. He went because he has the sense and impulse control of a teenager high on the Dark Side, because he took sarcasm for an order and his commander didn’t correct him.

By the void, Soverus will roast Mafit alive and throw him to a rancor.

“Captain, have sectors Besh to Esk to pull back. Organized-“

At the edge of the field one of their enemy’s ground units blips out of existence. It’s not the only one. Two, three, five. In the blink of an eye casualties mount. The haphazard forward march of the enemy combatants dissolves into outright disarray.

“My Lord?”

“Belay that.”

_I’ll be damned._

\---

 

The little bastard doesn’t only succeed and make Mafit look and feel like an idiot, he makes it _back_. Singed, bruised, covered in unmentionable substances from head to toe but _alive_.

His commanding officer is tempted to shake him until his head pops off. This time, he keeps his temper in check.

Dead silence descends upon the command center at the apprentice’s entrance, the kind of quiet you get only from Imperial soldiers who know for a fact they’re stuck in the middle of a Sith power play.

Their Lord sent a dissenter on a suicide run and he came back. Mafit knows just how this looks and what should come next.

After what happened today it should be no surprise that Yon disappoints all of his expectations.

They muster each other. Tension mounts and… the young man bows. “Forgive me, my lord. To question you as I did was unbecoming.”

 _I was right._ He doesn’t say. _It could be done. You were wrong. You know this, I know this, your whole unit does. But you are my senior and I will not undermine you more than I already have._

Force help them both, he even sounds sincere in his apology.

Mafit, who might have been wrong about the capabilities of all the resources at his disposal but nevertheless is positive he was right about _all but one of them_ does not show an ounce of relief.

_Force, but the boy is strong. Still an impulsive, reckless child but he sure can back up his claims, can’t he?_

“You realize this doesn’t change anything? One victory doesn’t win a war.”

_And you can’t fight a war on your own._

A moment’s hesitation and Sar concedes the point with a nod deep enough to show deference. “I understand, my lord.”

“This battlefield is lost. We can’t take it.”

 _There_ is the spark of defiance Marfit was waiting for. “I appreciate the difficulty of our position but with all due respect, my lord, is that fact or _conviction_?”

It’s fact. It is. It… is it?

Mafit purses his lips. Is it, still? How enduring, exactly, is this new resource at his disposal? Yon might be wet behind the ears, no two years out of Korriban and running on enough fire to fuel a stardestroyer, but he was right in what Mafit took for overconfidence. _Was it overconfidence? Or was it an accurate assessment of his own capabilities?_

Pride does not win wars either, as he has tried to impress upon the apprentice. That adage applies to the both of them. “What do you propose?”

“If I may, my lord? Let’s approach this differently. What would have to be done so we _could_ take this battlefield?”

 

\---

 

Vowrawn watches from afar as Soverus’ apprentice bows to him in farewell with every indication of heartfelt subservience. An interesting young man, indeed. Which makes his observations all the more… juicy.

The thought puts a little extra swing into his saunter. “Now, now, my dear friend. That’s not the face of someone whose student has won him the respect of his peers.”

The deep set lines around his colleague’s mouth sharpen at his approach. He says nothing.

Oh well. Vowrawn hadn’t counted on him cracking so easily. “I hear there’s talk about granting him his lordship. _Already_. You’ve only had him two years, no? A credit to his teacher. Well done.”

If his fellow councillor grinds his teeth any harder he’s going to crack one.

Vowrawn gives up the game with a huff. “You’re such a stick in the mud.”

“I don’t appreciate gossip.”

“It won’t kill you to indulge every once in a while.”

“That way lies complacency and disgrace.”

With a dramatic flair, Vowrawn lays a hand on own chest. “So hurtful! No respect for your elders! What has the youth come to?”

That, finally, is enough to make the younger pureblood flash a fleeting smile. “I have plenty of respect, old man, rest assured.”

He probably does, too. Soverus is of the kind of stock that can appreciate a Sith who makes it past seventy on a Dark Council seat even if it is ‘only’ Logistics, the tedious thing that holds their Empire together and keeps it running.

“You should lighten up. From one shrewd bastard to another, what has you in a tiff, hm? You can’t have wanted that campaign to go south.” That would have been costly, to say the least. In morale, if not in valuables. “It’s a wonder it didn’t, with our fleet tied up, but your darling apprentice turned it around, or so Mafit will tell anyone who will listen. He’s quite impressed.”

There it is again. The tightening around Soverus eyes, the faint twitch of his hands that speaks of a desire to strangle someone. Vowrawn takes in the clues with the deftness of a connoisseur. “Oh my. You _did_.”

The conclusion should make no sense, Soverus has never been one to slight the Empire for personal goals, but that is what Vowrawn likes best about the ever changing riddle that are other sentients. Especially his colleagues. No matter how old he gets, they still surprise him every now and again.

Darth Soverus heaves a sigh and inclines his head. Quietly, he admits, “He was supposed to learn a lesson.”

 _Oh **my**. _“Was he now?”

“Not here.”

They make their way out of the Chambers. Soverus is his typical, stoical self, unwilling to engage in fripperies which leaves Vowrawn holding the bag until they’re out on a balcony with less chance to be recorded. Good thing he can keep a conversation going all by himself.

“And what they’ve done to the hemlines! Simply outrageous. Now a little purple here and there never hurt anyone but really. _Brocade_?“ This tactic has the nice side effect that they are all but guaranteed to have bored any spies half to death before the interesting parts come around. Never let it be said a Sith lord has to be above petty little pleasures.

Korriban is always a sight to behold, especially from up here with the setting sun dipping the grounds in blood and gold. Home sweet home. Beside him Soverus leans heavily on the balustrade. “Oh, come off it. It can’t be so bad.”

“No offense, but you don’t have the first idea. He doesn’t know _defeat_ , Vowrawn.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“But,” the proclamation is one of the more unbelievable Vowrawn has heard in his time and he has heard a lot, “he finished his studies here, didn’t he?”

“Oh, Yon knows death. He knows fear, he knows fury.” Soverus rubs a hand over his face. “He hasn’t tasted despair and it will be his undoing.”

Especially with an eagle view of what every one of their acolytes goes through to earn their stripes, “By the name of all who sleep in their crypts below, _how_?”

“He’s too powerful.” Never has Vowrawn heard that claim made with more bone-deep weariness. “I swear to you, I’ve wasted the last three months of my life trying to give him a challenge he can’t conquer that won’t actually kill him and every time he comes back to me victorious, against all odds. I’m at the end of my rope.”

That… certainly is a dilemma. Not one Vowrawn has ever faced, admittedly. He tends toward a different problem with his students. They all _like_ him so Force-damned much, Qet hasn’t even tried to murder him _once_ in all the time he has served him. He’ll be stuck in his kriffing Council seat until he dies of old age and with no clear line of succession.

Sometimes, Vowrawn almost regrets axing his own master before he hit twenty. _Almost_.

“And now it’s coming back to bite me. Yon has made too many waves, if I block his promotion much longer I’ll look like I’m holding him back. If I don’t and set him loose, he’s liable to bite off more than he can chew like the daredevil he is.” Soverus’ broad shoulders sink as far as his colleague has ever seen them fall, about a half inch or so. “I would hate to see him go that way.”

“Hmm… yes that would be a true shame.” Thoughtfully, Vowrawn raps his nails on the red stone. “Too powerful, you say. Yet he seems so biddable.”

That obedience doesn’t seem to make Soverus any happier than his apprentice’s successful missions. “I don’t think it has ever occurred to him to question me.”

“He’s young.”

“He’s _working beneath his capacity_. His advantage on his peers has done him no favors. Do you know, his classmates once challenged him ten on one and he allowed them to survive the experience! What he needs is a killing edge and I don’t have the first idea how to hone him!”

Soverus displeasure makes the whole balcony vibrate.

 _Tsk, tsk. Temper._ It seems his dear colleague has gotten a tad attached to his young protégé. How cute. “He let them live?”

Fighting for self-control, Soverus growls, “ _Yes_.”

“Say, is he cruel to those lesser than him? Does he make them feel the gap?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“How _interesting_.” Vowrawn won’t deny there’s a certain self-satisfaction in his voice.

Those who know him, as Soverus does well enough, know to be on edge when he’s so pleased. He earns himself a suspicious look that doesn’t dampen his mood in the slightest. “What are you planning?”

“Why don’t you consider this, my friend: Perhaps what your dear student must learn isn’t defeat so much as _failure_.”

 

\---

 

“Apprentice. My congratulations to your lordship.”

“Thank you, master.

“You have served me faithfully but I have to admit I didn’t think to elevate you so soon.”

“… have I displeased you?”

“No. But I have a proposal for you: Take a term at the academy. Show me that you are learned enough to teach others. It would ease my mind.”

“Of course, master.”

“Very well. I’m sure you’ll do me proud.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I have no doubt.” _It’s just not **your** best that will be the deciding factor. Let’s hope this is the push you need._

 


End file.
